It was a few weeks after Washington, D.C., had been socked with nearly four feet of snow.

Former Midlander Matt Hansen assumed the wildlife in that area was getting antsy to get out, just as he was. So he scooped up his camera and started walking in a park along the Potomac River. About a mile into his walk, he saw something move.

"I could see it was a hawk kind of jump-flying from tree to tree," said Hansen, a 24-year-old freelance photographer, who specializes mostly in wildlife. "I eventually got behind the tree line and was able to walk right up to it basically without ever being exposed. When I got into the clearing where it was, it was totally concentrating on a squirrel so it really didn't care that I was there. It was in the zone, you could say."

He had time to set up his camera, and make sure the lighting and exposures were correct. He started taking pictures.

"It kind of crouched down, did that mockingly a few times, took off and literally flipped itself upside down to grab the squirrel, hoping its body weight would pull the squirrel out of the tree."

Gravity won, but not the way the hawk had hoped.

"They struggled for a few seconds, gravity got the best of the hawk," Hansen said. The hawk flew off and landed in a tree about 100 yards away, where Hansen lost track of it. The squirrel remained frozen on the tree branch.

Hansen knew immediately he had captured something rare.

"You usually know the second you click the shutter if you have something special or not," Hansen saimd. "That was the feeling I had."

Nature is harsh, he said, but his goal is to capture wildlife in its environment.

No need to feel sorry for the hawk, though. Three days later, he went back to the park and spent three hours photographing the same hawk as it ate a squirrel - but, he said, not the same squirrel he photographed days earlier.

Hansen published the hawk/squirrel photos on his website, www.matt-hansen.com, and they have attracted quite a bit of online attention. Some 40 websites linked to the photos on his site.

As a freelancer, Hansen is a contributor to Getty Images, a stock photo website, and has contributed photos to Nature's Best Photography magazine.

As a musician, he has written music for television series, including "American Cowboy," an Animal Planet show that follows the life of a modern day cowboy, "Crime 360," a detective series on A&E, and "Known Universe," which explores the mysteries of the universe, on National Geographic.

He and his wife, Emily, a professional photographer, moved to D.C. in February. Both their parents live in Midland, Bob and Kathy Hansen, and Jeff and Jenny Worden, all of Midland.